In fact I don't disagree at all. Desensitizing the soldiers serves a clear purpose. One hopes the average 18 year old isn't very excited about killing other humans who he doesn't even know--some psychological preparation for the action, and for dealing it afterwards, is valuable.
What struck me was how they were appropriating (and, in effect, praising) their techniques while talking the Japanese down at the same time. It was somewhat incongruous.
It is ironic, i'll agree. But, I happen to be one of those folks who has no problem disliking someone, but also acknowledging something useful that they do or know, and learning that from them.
To me there is no contradiction between disliking, or even HATING someone personally, and still wanting to know how to do something that they do well.
Conversely, i've noticed that my attitude on the matter seems to be in the minority......i've noticed that most folks, when they dislike or hate someone, tend to turn that hatred in to a whole sale hatred of everything about that person. When they hate them, the tend to denigrate everything about them, and refuse to acknowledge anything good about them, or that they do well.
Take the classic 'Nazi fallacy'.........folks hate the Nazis, and rightfully so, but they also tend to have a knee jerk hatred of anything that gets linked with the Nazis, as in 'The Nazis did X, so X must be bad, and I should dislike X'. Me, I have the opinion that just because the Nazis did X, doesn't speak anything about X other than the Nazis found it useful. If X isn't what made the Nazis bad, then there is nothing wrong with X.